Conspiracy Theories and Me
1. Let me draw the line: I am not one of those people who believe we faked the Apollo missions to the moon. I do believe that astronauts saw UFOs during space flights, but I do not believe we just pretended to go to the moon. In fact that just sounds crazy to me. When someone says that, I cringe inside and feel sorry for them. I might even look down at them a little, thinking to myself, "Wow, their only chance to live here on earth and they waste time on this? How foolish."
2. I do happen to buy into several key conspiracy theories. When I bring them up, many people react to me, as I do to people who insist we faked the flights to the moon. These include conspiracies to kill JFK, the aforementioned UFO topic, and now the theory of US government involvement with 9/11. I realize how superior it makes people feel when someone says something that they consider idiotic, but I also realize history is replete with examples of the mainstream knowledge being wrong.
3. Maybe a lot of this stuff is hard-wired. It seems the same people are always believing the official story, while it's always more or less the same types who question it. I also sense that there is a sort of individual who thrives on being different. In other words, the scorn and ridicule that keeps many people in line, is actually invigorating to some. It's also amusing to me when people present their heartfelt beliefs and then the camera pans over and the person listening looks stunned by how crazy it all is. That to me is genuinely funny.
4. I also find it deeply amusing when the people who buy into the official story and scoff at others for believing such outlandish jive, also just happen to buy into the main religion of the culture they were born into. There is no major conspiracy theory that comes close to the magnitude involved in a leap of faith, yet these people embrace the religion they were raised in as the absolute truth, even as they look down at others. I used to find that irritating, but I have grown. I now find that deeply amusing - borderline hilarious. Out of respect, let's assume whatever you believe is the truth. But those others sure seem out of it, don't they? As a local comedian named John Wetteland once said, "Your magic story is the real one. Everyone else is just crazy." The religions of others just seem like the ultimate wild conspiracy theory, don't you agree? Isn't it just fear of the unknown turned into an elaborate story? Isn't it just Godly Spin?
5. I'm going to continue presenting a few of my conspiracy theories. It might not change your mind about anything, but I feel like I have to do this. I actually believe our best chance for survival is to diffuse these tragic religious beliefs. Not yours, of course. Yours is true. It's these other idiots we have to worry about. The UFO story could do that. If everyone around the world could simultaneously realize that the belief systems that fill them with a cloak of moral superiority, are wrong - well, we just might have a chance at survival. Why? Because a lot of people get killed when a group believes they are the ones God loves and the rest are just hellbound losers. We're in a race against time here. The people who control the means to end the world - the largest stockpile of weapons in history - believe with all their hearts that the world is destined to end. They even call it the End Times. It was one thing when these people were riding around on horseback, torturing each other for not being devout enough. But they've got nuclear weapons now. What if they hear God telling them to drop these bombs? What if they believe it was foretold? Me, I like the challenge of trying to survive. Humanity deserves to continue. We invented rock and roll and football. We have contributed. I'd like to think humans are in the primitive beginning. I want us to get some alien UFO technology and move out into space. Sounds crazy, doesn't it?
posted by Bill McDonald @ 7:09 AM
9 comments
9 Comments:
Here's an interesting event that hasn't received much attention:
Monday, September 11th, 2006
EXCLUSIVE...9/11 Debate: Loose Change Filmmakers vs. Popular Mechanics Editors of "Debunking 9/11 Myths"
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/09/11/1345203
It wasn't much of a debate, but at least the two sides came together. You'd think with a third of the US public thinking there's something fishy about 9/11 that someone would have thought about such a debate sooner.
Hats off to Democracy Now for being where no one else was in news--yet again.
Yeah, they came around but many have tagged Democracy Now with the Left Gatekeeper label for not getting involved earlier and bigger. There's this intermediate group of lefties that scoff at 9/11 theories while opposing the Iraq War. It's sort of playing it safe. If they really looked at 9/11, there's very little room for doubt, so this is a failure on their parts, in my opinion and it doesn't help. By the way, I have seen what I consider to be the best evidence yet that the official story is crap. Coming to a blog post near you very soon.
well, from over here where me myself and i drink too much and laugh at everyone for everything, it all looks crazy, no matter who's telling you what. Some days there's just so much to laugh at your belly hurts like you have unbelievable gas and all you can do is moan and cry, and giggle when the people come on the tee-vee and tell you all about how right they are and how wrong everyone else is. Then you go somewhere and one of the wrong people are out there, and they're shouting about how right they are. My cousins on the DC plane, where the hell are they now? Is that funny or what? They've just disappeared. Did they even exist in the first place?
I went through a pretty big booze phase when my friend got killed in a terrorist attack. It made it seem real to be drunk, but be careful - it doesn't help with the healing. You have to make sure this situation doesn't ruin your life and take you out with it. I wish I had gotten some professional help but I repressed it all for too long. What do they call it? Self-medication?
I'm sorry about your cousins, and best of luck to you.
One other thing: When you say, "Did they even exist in the first place" that's so familiar to me. I was in shock for a long time and it made the world seem extremely surreal. This sort of thing can really test your hold on reality, which is another reason booze/drugs can hurt.
Isn't it weird to read about something this personal and private for you but it's in the newspaper? I read about my friend's death in the papers and magazines. It was bizarre. It actually feels like a mental breakdown, and your question about your cousins existing or not reminded me of that. Hang in there.
whats weird is when i'm told by someone that no plane hit the pentagon. And then i have to ask, then where did they go? Because they were on that plane, and now they're gone... who knows where if that plane didn't hit the pentagon.
I've drunk too much since before that September, off and on, been through rehab, know the platitudes. I just don't belong here. (have no fear, that's not some cryptic allusion to self-destruction.) But no i think my point is that all "sides" have been laughable in their answers and no, really, they can't honestly expect us to believe a single word out of their cakeholes. I point my finger at the guys on the planes, all the metaphorical guys on the planes, and they were lied to also!
I've been through some self-destructive stages and felt like it was all pointless. I'll even admit there were times when I didn't want to continue, but I made it through those and I'm glad I did. It's sort of a relief at times knowing life won't last forever, but you might as well stick around as long as you can, just to see what happens. The concept of belonging here or not. Hmm, that's heavy. I'd say we all belong because we're here.
Now as to whether I feel like I fit in? That would have to be one big "Hell no!"
Now hold on just a minute. You say in your post that you "realize how superior it makes people feel when someone says something that they consider idiotic" in your post, Bill, but then you go and accuse someone like myself of "playing it safe" and not really looking at 9/11 because there's "very little room for doubt". That's just an incredible double standard, and one I don't think people like myself deserve to be tarred with because I've been pretty forthright, I think, in my reasons for distrusting the explanations of the destruction of the WTC that include wiring the buildings for explosives, for instance.
One of the reasons I don't give any credence to any of the conspiracy theories that I've seen goes back to the discussion we had the other day. When I read or see descriptions of what a conspiracy believer sees in in things like the collapse of WTC7, they get the basic physics of the collapse wrong. They claim that visible explosions during the collapse are proof of their theory, despite the fact that in a controlled demolition the explosions have to happen before the collapse. They make a big deal about the building collapsing "in free-fall" when that's exactly how everything falls in gravity: that's the definition of "free-fall". The conspiracy theories don't hold together for even someone with basic scientific knowledge like myself. The integrity of the argument on a physics level doesn't make a skeptic like myself confident in other aspects of the argument.
On the other hand, thousands of eyewitnesses saw planes fly into the World Trade Center towers. Millions of people saw the second plane hit on live television. The planes were moving hundreds of miles an hour and packed a lot of kinetic energy. When each of them hit, they created an explosion of jet fuel that provided a certain amount of explosive force which would have further weakened the structures. People keep going on and on about how the fire from jet fuel wasn't hot enough to burn through steel, but I'd lay odds that the structures were doomed from the times of the impacts. It was just a matter of gravity overtaking the weakened supports.
And WTC7? A big chunk of one of the corners stretching from floors 8 to 18 as well as a huge section of the south face of the building was taken out by debris spewed out from the collapse of WTC1. As stuff came down, a lot of it was ejected to the sides. WTC7 may have gotten it worse than shorter structures between it and WTC1 because its height left more area exposed to the lateral debris.
Personally, that doesn't seem all that hard to believe. I didn't have to read government reports for any of it, except for the stuff on WTC7's damage. It just seems like physics and a realization that the WTC buildings were incredibly large, to me.
Hey, I know I'm not going to convince you any more than you're going to convince me, so that's my last word on the subject. But don't believe for a second that my understanding of what happened is "playing it safe" or that I have insufficient doubt. If you come up with a conspiracy theory whose science isn't total garbage, I'll be happy to listen to it, but so far they don't hold water.
darellplant, bear with me. I've got a link for you when I have more time. It's either faked or it shows the squibs coming up the side of Building 7 before the collapse begins.
If you can look at this and not suspect a problem with the official story than there's little more I can do.
If I overstepped by saying "play it safe" then I apologize. I'm a little frustrated right now. I'll have the post by tomorrow.
Post a Comment
<< Home